Abstract
This paper studies the relationship between a democratic reform and redistribution during periods of revolutionary threats. Far from causing an increase in broad redistribution (e.g. social spending), I show that the state organization of a social movement that extends the political rights of the threatening group can be used to identify rebel leaders and provide private goods to them, in return for preventing social unrest and demobilizing their supporters. I study the context of the organization by the state of the most important social movement in Colombian history -the National Peasant Movement (ANUC)- during the decades of a threat of Communist revolution (1957-1985), when the government gave ANUC direct political participation at the local level in the executive branch and economic support. Using three newly digitized data sets of Colombian municipalities, I find that this reform did not lead to higher broad redistribution towards the peasantry but it led to an increase in targeted redistribution in terms of public jobs and lands. In particular, by matching the names of the peasant leaders to the beneficiaries of the land reform, evidence suggests that peasant leaders disproportionately benefited from land reform, especially in municipalities where the communist threat was higher. Finally, I find suggestive evidence that buying off the rebel leaders was an effective counter-revolutionary strategy as it led to less revolutionary activities after the support to ANUC was terminated (1972-1985).
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Maria del Pilar López es candidata a Doctora en Economía del Desarrollo del London School of Economics (LSE). Economista y Magister en Economía de la Universidad de los Andes, María del Pilar actualmente trabaja en el Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) del LSE. Sus áreas de investigación son el desarrollo económico, la historia económica y la economía política.